The 'White Australia' Policy restricted immigration of 'coloured' races and was supported by politicians of all ideologies, from the most conservative to the most radical; they were united in their desire to keep Australia 'pure white'.

Focus question
RaQ14 What is the powerful motive to federate (i.e. dissolve the 'political divisions' between colonies) Deakin describes in this document?

ONE PEOPLE WITHOUT THE ADMIXTURE OF OTHER RACES

We here find ourselves touching the profoundest instinct of individual or nation – the instinct of self-preservation – for it is nothing less than the national manhood, the national character, and the national future that are at stake ... no motive operated more powerfully in dissolving the technical and arbitrary political divisions which previously separated us than the desire that we should be one people and remain one people without the admixture of other races. It is not necessary to reflect upon them even by implication. It is only necessary to say that they do not and cannot blend with us; that we do not, cannot, and ought not to blend with them. This was the motive which swayed tens of thousands who take little interest in contemporary politics – this was the note that touched particularly the Australian born, who felt themselves endowed with a heritage not only of political freedom, but of an ample area within which the race might expand, and an obligation consequent upon such an endowment – the obligation to pass on to their children and the generations after them that territory undiminished and uninvaded.

Alfred Deakin, Commonwealth House of Representatives Debates, 12 September 1901 p.4804.

"Piebald possibilities – a little Australian Christmas Family Party of the Future", Hop, Sydney Bulletin, 13 May 1902.

Hop [Livingston Hopkins] exploits 'white' Australians' fears of invasion and 'interbreeding'.